Japanese Hot IPTV Market, Thanks To Korean Soaps

Also part of the Newsweek cover feature (read stories below): a story about the Japanese online/IPTV market: Dozens of companies offer old dramas, anime series, movies, news and variety shows on IPTV (Internet protocol TV), and hundreds of thousands of Japanese are getting their TV online. Yoshihiro Adachi, an assistant director of Tokyo’s Fuji Chimera Research Institute, estimates the broadband-TV market will be worth $230 million in five years, up from $42 million in 2003.

Why has the market taken off so suddenly? Because in Japan, IPTV has a killer app: Korean dramas.